Between Each Breath

Very surprised to see how few people have read this book. Adam Thorpe burst onto the literary scene with Ulverton, a structurally tricky and bravura novel which gained plaudits all over the place. This is very different - a very readable book that could be picked up with advantage by the Richard and Judy book club, but also very beautifully written - we can see Thorpe's other 'day job' as a poet in his lyrical descriptive passages and the way he describes the creative process of the lead character, Jack, a modern classical composer. The book situates creativity as a profession, and Jack between his David Lodge like white working class origins and his Hampstead life as the husband of a stunning eco warrier awash with inherited wealth. show more Family, loss, deception, children - and their absence - all shape the narrative, as the consequences of Jack's affair with Estonian beauty and bad violinist Kaja reach across six years and bind together the beginning and end of the book. Between each breath centres around the idea of 'home' and of belonging, finding a place and people that are right - 'I very much like what I see stretching out in front of me. It was always there too, I just didn't realise it. It just needed a turn of the head.' - but at the same time shows us how fragile, like a tray of eggs, this can be. A thought provoking book, simple to read, difficult to pigeon hole. show less

A beautifully written meditation on love and art contained in a truly compelling narrative and one of the most profoundly plausible books I have read which includes classical music amongst its subject matter. Head and shoulders above any other novel by an english author I have read this year.